


Going Nowhere

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Affair era, Angst, Home Farm, Home Farm Week, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Scars, Self-Harm, body image issues, soft cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18327746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: They’d been lying there for hours, spent and exhausted, and yet Aaron didn’t want to go to sleep just yet.  He wanted to keep this memory, as well as all the others, alive in his mind just a little longer. He wanted to remember this, the simple thing of lying in bed with someone with their arms around you, to try and imagine just this once what it might be like if things were different.If this were his - their - bed.If Robert were Aaron’s husband instead of Chrissie’s.





	Going Nowhere

Lying on cool, cotton sheets, completely naked with Robert pressed flush against his back, Aaron fought sleep though his eyes burned as he tried to savour the feel of the man next to him. His skin was slightly sticky with sweat, his breath tickling the back of Aaron’s neck, one bare leg slung over his hip and the other lying across his stomach, cocooning him like a warm, living blanket. **  
**

They’d been lying there for hours, spent and exhausted, and yet Aaron didn’t want to go to sleep just yet.  He wanted to keep this memory, as well as all the others, alive in his mind just a little longer. He wanted to remember this, the simple thing of lying in bed with someone with their arms around you, to try and imagine just this once what it might be like if things were different.

If this were his -  _their_  - bed.

If Robert were Aaron’s husband instead of Chrissie’s.

Just thinking the words made him feel sick to his stomach;  _he wasn’t Aaron’s. He belonged to someone else._

But it didn’t stop him from settling further into Robert’s arms, listening to the sound of his slow, rasping breaths, feeling the the curl of his toes against the back of his calf and waiting, every so often, for the barely-audible snore he gave, which made Aaron bite his lip to stop himself from sniggering.

Robert Sugden snored. That was both bloody brilliant and downright infuriating, especially when he was just about to fall asleep, only to be interrupted by a  _snort-grunt_  coming from behind him.

Rolling onto his opposite side, Aaron turned in Robert’s arms to face him directly, wanting to watch his face as he slept. There was something about him that changed when he was asleep, Aaron had noticed. Gone was the hard, cocky attitude and ‘rebel without a cause’ exterior, and in its place there was something….soft about him. Gentle. With the smirk gone from his lips and his nose no longer in the air in a ‘holier than thou’ way the way it usually was, with him swanning around the village in a battered - though, probably, knowing him, very very expensive - leather jacket thinking he was James bloody Dean, Robert was different. Aaron liked him more like this, when he wasn’t trying so hard to pretend to everyone that he was someone he wasn’t. Like this, he wasn’t Robert Sugden, Village Arsehole, but just Robert.

In the dim light of the room, a thin strip of moonlight coming through the curtains was just enough for Aaron to make out the smattering of freckles on Robert’s cheeks, and he found himself tracing them with his eyes, the way they decorated his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose in that God forsaken way that Aaron found endearing. Made him look less like a cocky bastard and more of an actual human being with feelings.

Without really thinking about it, Aaron raised the tip of his finger to Robert’s cheek and stroked the path of the freckles there, feather-light and soft lest he wake him up. He stirred, but remained asleep. His skin was soft under the rough pads of Aaron’s fingers from years of hard work as a mechanic, and he felt the warmth there spreading through his whole body, lighting him up from the inside.

Gently, as softly as he could, he leaned forward to press a kiss to the tip of Robert’s nose; he let his eyes flutter closed as he took in this simple moment, this tiny gesture of domestic bliss that they rarely ever let themselves feel. They were so often hurried and rushed, always sending last-minute texts and speaking with using words over the vast space of a packed pub, but now they had time, and Aaron wasn’t looking to waste any of it.

Robert shifted next to him, his eyes slowly blinking open, stretching out slightly as he woke from sleep. His lips quirked into a teasing smile. “You going soft on me, Dingle?” he joked in a sleepy voice, nudging Aaron’s calf with his toes.

“Nah,” Aaron grinned, leaning in for another soft kiss to the tip of the other man’s nose. “Just admiring the view, aren’t I?”

“Hmm,” Robert hummed, wrapping one naked leg more tightly around Aaron’s, holding him closer and bringing their chests flush together. With each breath, their bare skin brushed, and it was enough to leave them searching for each other’s mouths in a desperate kiss, all tongue and warm lips.

Robert woke fully now, wrapping his strong arms around Aaron’s waist and splaying his hands across the expanse of his back, moving his mouth from his lips to his jaw and then his neck, lightly sucking there with a tiny moan as they tangled together all over again, neither really knowing where one ended and the other began. It was a mess of teeth and tongues and limbs, the moonlight playing over their bare skin as they wound around each other.

Aaron rolled onto his back so that Robert was on top of him, arms bracketing either side of his head, hands spread wide on the pillow. He reached up to find his mouth again, groaning as the new position changed the feel of the kiss, hooking one hand around the back of Robert’s neck to anchor him there. His hips arched voluntarily, and Robert broke away with a gasp to lower his pale blond head to Aaron’s chest and stomach, peppering the sensitive skin there with harsh, wet kisses that made Aaron’s blood heat. His fingers found Robert’s hair and pulled, holding him in place as he laved over his skin.

Until he felt Robert graze the raised, jagged skin on his lower abdomen, and his whole body tensed as fear closed itself around his chest and throat, making his hands,  still holding Robert’s hair, shake violently.

“Robert,” he managed to croak out. “Rob-stop, please. Just stop.”

“Why?” the other man asked, his voice muffled against his stomach. He turned to start covering his body with kisses again. “I was just getting started.”

“Don’t!” Aaron said, this time more harshly. “Please.” His eyes screwed shut as he clenched his jaw to keep from losing his head completely. “Trust me, Robert. I don’t - I don’t want you to touch me there.”

This time, Robert obeyed, and raised his head to give Aaron an intense, concerned look. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion - and worry. “Aaron?”

“I’m ugly, Robert,” he said quietly. “Okay? I - I got scars, all over me, and I don’t want anybody seeing or knowing about them….or touching them.”

“These?” Robert asked gently, rubbing his finger and thumb over a particularly angry one near Aaron’s hip.

He remembered, as clear as day, the memory of how and when he’d done it. He’d had a nightmare, another one, a bad one, and he’d woken up in the middle of the night in a blind panic, unable to breathe, and slashed at his skin with an old razor he found in the bathroom cupboard.

He shut his eyes against the memory, turning away from Robert. But he was persistent, and he heard the rustle of the sheets as he climbed back up to him, cocooning him in his arms and pressing his cheek to the top of his head.

“I used to cut myself,” Aaron whispered into the blackness, not daring to turn his head or look anywhere but at the backs of his own eyelids, because he was too afraid that this revelation might send Robert running for the hills. That it would make him discover that he preferred Chrissie, who didn’t have a map of bad memories and a lifetime of agony etched into her skin. “Before. When I was growing up.”

For several long moments, there was only silence. Aaron filled it awkwardly, suddenly grasped with the desire to get everything off his chest. “I guess I was depressed or summat, I dunno. I think I was. I mean, I didn’t get diagnosed or anything. But I knew I was ill, and I couldn’t stop it, so I just kept cutting because it was the only thing that made me feel any different to how empty I thought my life was. I did it for years.”

“You’re brave,” Robert murmured against his hair, smoothing a hand over the side of his torso and down his thigh in a slow, circular motion, as if to soothe him by his physical touch. “You’re braver than I am.”

“You saw the scars, Rob. They’re disgusting.” Aaron repressed a shudder. “I hate them. I wish I didn’t have them, but I do, and nothing can change that.”

“Hey, hey,” Robert called softly, “don’t talk like that. They’re not disgusting. They’re-” he cut himself off, swallowed audibly. “They’re beautiful.”

Aaron huffed a derisive laugh. “No, they’re not. I don’t need you to pity me, Robert. And I don’t need any false rubbish about how they make me a strong person, because I’ve heard it all before from me mum and I don’t believe it.”

“She’s a smart woman,” he agreed. “She may hate me, but she’s right about that, at least.”  He nuzzled the side of Aaron’s neck, pressed a tiny kiss to his shoulder. “Please believe me when I say I don’t care about what you’ve been through. You don’t have to tell me everything, but - I’m glad you’ve told me about this.”

By some form of miracle, hearing those words loosened something in Aaron’s chest without him wanting them to; just the acknowledgement that he was glad, he was thankful, that he’d shared this with him made it seem a little less of a burden to deal with.

“Thanks for, y’know, listening,” Aaron replied gruffly. “I’m sorry I kind of freaked out before, when you touched me.”

“I get it, it’s a sensitive issue for you,” Robert said. “I’m just sorry you had to go through it, whatever it is, that’s all.” His hand came to rest on Aaron’s stomach. “I am here for you, you know.”

“I know,” Aaron concurred, sleep starting to slur the edges of his words now, the warm lull of Robert’s voice and sincere words - because he believed they were sincere, despite the circumstances, despite everything - making his body relax and become heavy. “Thanks, Robert.”

Robert pulled up the sheets higher and tucked them around them both, protecting them from the slight chill that had descended on the room. “Go to sleep, Aaron. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh-ohkay,” Aaron yawned, his eyes closing.

And for the first proper time in a while, he did.

**Author's Note:**

> originally written oct 10th 2018 
> 
> come find me on tumblr: robertssvgden :)


End file.
